


the things you see under the streets of derry

by howimetyourmulder (skuls)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Deadlights (IT), Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fix-It, Flashbacks, M/M, i dont even know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 10:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21456319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/howimetyourmulder
Summary: Eddie doesn't throw the fence post to get Richie out of the Deadlights. Things go differently.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 7
Kudos: 388
Collections: It Faves





	the things you see under the streets of derry

**Author's Note:**

> i've never really written for this fandom before, so i apologize for any inaccuracies. i also apologize if this makes no sense; it was an attempt to make sense of a slightly lucid dream i had. 
> 
> you can find me sorting through various hyperfixation crisises at @how-I-met-your-mulder on tumblr and @graceskuls on Twitter

Eddie didn't like remembering Neibolt, particularly the first time he'd gone into Neibolt back in 1989. It was about the worst hour of his entire life, or at least among the top contenders. Falling through the floor and breaking his arm, and then almost getting his face bit off by an evil clown was enough to scar him for life. All these years later, it still seemed unreal that he'd _ forgotten _ it—in the rush of memories that had hit him in the car when Mike called, the first time in Neibolt had hit him the hardest. He'd felt the pain all over again, felt the _ fear _soaking into him like he was a sponge, the clown's gloved hands on his face, his friends' screams. It seemed impossible to forget that, as impossible as it suddenly seemed to have forgotten his friends.

In Neibolt, the third time, in the room with Bill and Richie, Eddie flashed back to that first time all over again. But it wasn't the same things he had remembered before, the broken arm or the fucking clown. It was when he and Richie and Bill had first gone into the house, before they were separated, and Richie had found the Missing poster with his own face on it. It wasn't real—Eddie noted that with relief as it came back to him, it was just a fucking trick—but Richie had been scared anyway, frantic and panicking. Bill had talked him down, tried to comfort him, but Eddie had just stood there, frozen in horror, unable to move or offer any comfort even when Richie looked at him. He'd seen that Missing poster and thought of the ones around town: the ones with Georgie's face on them, the ones with Betty Ripsom, with Edward Corcoran, the other Eddie at their school. He had tried for months not to picture his own face or his friends' faces on those posters, and now it was impossible not to; Richie's face was right there, even if it wasn't real, and it meant that maybe he _ could _disappear, and Eddie couldn't do anything but stand there and stare, hands over his mouth like he could hold in a scream. Bill could comfort Richie, tell him it wasn't real, but Eddie couldn't; he couldn't even move. 

Richie hadn't had the same problem. He went straight for Eddie when the clown was coming for them, held his face in his hands and told him to look away. 

The sudden memory made Eddie's face flush warm and red with embarrassment, pressed against the wall of Neibolt, frozen once again with fear. Bill was shouting at him to get the knife as he tried to pull Stan's severed spider head off of Richie and he couldn't move because he was fucking _ afraid_. Except it wasn't just an inability to comfort Richie, it was actually putting him in danger. It was Ben that ultimately saved Richie, not Eddie, because Eddie couldn't fucking move, and he hated himself for it. 

For that brief moment in Neibolt, in 1989, Eddie had been afraid of losing his best friend. And twenty-seven years later, he'd almost lost him for real. He couldn't really even blame Bill for shouting at him after that. Even after Richie's reassurances, before they descended further into the sewer, he still couldn't shake it, this feeling that he'd failed Richie, failed the rest of his friends. It was the same deep shame he'd felt in the passenger seat of his mother's car as she shouted at his friends, blamed them for his broken arm. And this time it felt more real, more permanent. The fear he felt when Bev disappeared underwater, and the rest of his friends dove under, one by one: the fear that they'd never resurface. The fear that they wouldn't make it out this time. They had already lost Stan, and he couldn't stand to lose anyone else, not when he'd just gotten them back. 

He remembered it all again when he saw Richie hanging in the Deadlights, his feet off the ground, his limbs limp, his eyes whitened over. Floating. He remembered Bev being caught in the Deadlights suddenly, floating in mid-air, not coming out very easily—but that had been different, because the fucking clown had left her alone. It was _ here _ now, the lights streaming out of Its mouth, trapping Richie in the air, and Eddie could see the three lights swirling together, moving down towards Richie, and he knew what it meant, he knew it would be very very bad if they reached him.

Bile rose in his throat, and he moved towards Richie without thinking, pushing his way into the clear part of the clearing, lifting his hand to shield his eyes from the flash of light coming from the clown's unhinged alligator jaw. The fence post fell from his fingers, and he barely even noticed. He scrambled down to where Richie hovered the air, his shoes slipping on the rocks, and bellowed, "Richie!" without thinking. 

He didn't answer, of course; he couldn't hear Eddie. Eddie craned his neck to look up and saw Richie's face, slack like he was asleep; he used to fall asleep like that when they were younger, his face half in the pillow and his mouth hanging open. Eddie could remember a thousand sleepovers where he woke up to Richie asleep looking an awful lot like that, snoring a little, drooling on the pillow, his feet tangled with Eddie's in the middle of the mattress and his arms sprawled across the bed. 

Eddie swallowed hard. He stretched his arm upwards, reaching for Richie's sneaker, and muttered, "Come on, Rich, come on, stay with me." The lights were moving closer, moving faster.

Richie was a little too high, floating out of reach. Eddie rose up as high as he could on his toes and grasped in the air desperately. His fingers only grazed the bottom of Richie's shoe. Frustrated, the punchlines of a million short jokes courtesy of Richie running through his head, he jumped, and managed to close his hand around Richie's ankle. His plan was to pull Richie back to the ground gently, like they'd done with Bev twenty-seven years ago, but his feet landed on nothing when he dropped back to the ground. There was nothing under his feet, like the rock had just crumbled away, and he plunged downwards automatically, his fingers slipping from where they held onto Richie's shoe. 

Eddie fell a few feet before landing hard on a cushion of rock, knocking the wind straight out of him. "_Fuck,_" he groaned, sitting up gingerly, thankful he hadn't landed on a limb again. He was at the bottom of some kind of pit in the rock that he guessed was not entirely natural, and was more likely to be the result of the fucking clown. It looked like a fucking grave, too cramped, and for a moment, Eddie couldn't breathe. He groped instinctively for his inhaler before remembering that he had burned it. He scrambled to his feet and tipped his head back, trying to see the top of the pit. He was several feet down, but he could still see flickery light near the top. Flickering light and the bottom of Richie's shoes. 

"Rich!" he shouted, the memory slamming back, and he pressed his palms to the rock walls of the pit as if he was planning to climb up the sides. "Fuck," he hissed, and smacked the wall without thinking, immediately wincing as he scraped his palm. "Guys?" he shouted. "Can you hear me? Richie needs help!"

There was no answer. Only the roar, somewhere far off, of the clown. Eddie tried to grab a crevice on the wall and pull himself up, but his hand only slipped down the wall. "Mike!" he shouted—Richie got caught saving Mike from the clown, Mike should've been right nearby, but he heard no answer. "Bill, Bev, somebody! Where the fuck are you guys?" He tried to climb the wall again, pressing his toes in, but he only managed to scramble up a few feet before losing his grip and dropping again. "Mother_fuck_er," he groaned, his head falling back against the rocks. He tried again, shouting as loudly as he could: "Guys, where are you? We need help over here!" Still nothing. 

Eddie couldn't breathe. His chest was tight and he couldn't catch his breath, and he knew he was going to die down here, and he was terrified that Richie was going to die, too. He grasped desperately at his pocket and came up with nothing, of course, and he could still see Richie's shoes hovering, hovering somewhere above him. He sucked in another breath, ready to shout again, but another voice cut him off. The fucking clown, Its voice hushed, as if It was whispering right in Eddie's ear: _ They're not coming, Eddie. It's too late. _

In an instant, the shoes disappeared. Eddie caught a flash of Richie's slack face in a split second before he vanished, his body hitting the ground somewhere above Eddie with a thud. His arm flopped over the side of the pit, his hand dangling limply in the air. Dangling limply, lifeless in midair. 

Eddie was frozen for a moment, stiff and shaking huddled in the corner of the pit. _ Richie, _he thought desperately, but the words wouldn't come, his throat was shut. He couldn't take his eyes off of those fingers, Richie's limp hand. He was thinking of that Missing poster and trying not to, and he was shaking like a leaf, and he wanted to be anywhere else right now, and he needed to help Richie, but he couldn't move. He tried to say his name, but all that came out was a squeak.

The clown, wherever the fuck It was, began to laugh, that unhinged laugh that had haunted Eddie's nightmares for fucking _ years. They're gone, Eddie, _ It said in Its stupid singsong. _ They're gone because you _ left _ them, you left them allllll alone. They're gone because _ you _ didn't save them. _

Eddie shook his head hard, his eyes squeezing shut. They weren't gone, he _ knew _ they weren't because Mike had been fine when Richie had thrown the rock, and the others… the others… 

_ You were scaaaared, _ said the clown in a sharp mocking tone like a child's, Its voice wavering back and forth between giggles. _ You were scared, and so you left them all behind when they needed you. _

Richie's fingers were still pointed at the ground, still limp and unmoving. Eddie wondered if they were cold. When they were kids and used to play in the snow, Richie would always _ refuse _ to wear anything on his hands and then immediately grab Eddie's as soon as he took off his mittens to make him shriek. The memory made him tear up, unbidden, and he was moving before he knew it, forcing himself to move to the wall, to grip the sides with his palms again and try to move upwards. "Rich," he muttered, almost involuntarily, and finished the thought in his head. _ Richie, I'm coming. _

_ Oh, you can try to make up for what you've done, Eddie, but it's too late for that. The damage is done. All you do is run away, Eddie, run away and leave behind people when they need you most. _ The clown's voice went mockingly sad, falsely sympathetic. _ You didn't help Bev, and you didn't help Mikey… You didn't help Richie, poor poor Richie… _

"S-shut the hell up," Eddie whispered, his hands shaking as he climbed. 

_ You left your mommy, _said the clown, and Eddie's breath caught in his throat. His sweat-slicked palm slipped against the rock, and he dug his toes in, quivering from head to toe. 

_ Ohhh, you thought nobody knew about that, did you? _ the clown cooed. _ It was one of your _ secrets _ , wasn't it, Eds? But _ I _ know. And your mother knows. _

"I-I didn't leave her," he whispered, but a traitorous part of his brain added, _ You had to leave. _He shook his head hard all over again. 

_ Oh, you left her in the basement, and you left her in this town, and you left her all alone to die! _ The clown was laughing in a way that made Eddie crazy, that made him want to cry. _ You left her, just like you left your friends, and just like you left your wife. Allll alone. _

"I-I didn't—" Eddie muttered automatically, and then clenched his jaw shut. He looked back up at Richie's hand and it was enough to keep him moving, to let him scramble up a little more. He halfway heard Richie's voice in his head—_ You've gone full Spiderman, Spaghetti! _—as he plunged his hand upwards towards Richie's. 

_ You leave them all behind, Eddie, you forget them and you run away, because you're a coward, a dirty little coward with dirty little secrets. _

Eddie's shoe slipped against the wall; he clutched hard at an outhanging of the wall with one hand and reached up as far as he could with the other. The clown was still talking somewhere, calling him a coward, calling him selfish; he tried not to listen, clinging to the wall and stretching as high as he could. His fingers brushed Richie's, just barely; he was right, they were freezing. They were cold and unmoving and almost lifeless, and tears pooled involuntarily in Eddie's eyes, and he croaked, "Richie," without thinking. He could feel himself start to lose his grip, feel himself starting to fall, and he reached again, except for the time when he brushed his fingers over Richie's cool palm, Richie's hand moved, too. It curled around his hand and held on tight. 

Eddie gasped a little and said louder, "_Richie,_" pushed up with his feet and free hand to try and get closer, but he couldn't pull himself up. He worried briefly about dislocation in his arm, and then Richie's second hand closed over Eddie's wrist, holding him steady, pulling him up just a bit. Eddie's hand grasped at the edge of the pit for the first time, breathed harder as he pulled himself up. And then he was face to face with Richie. 

Richie looked horrible. He was ghost-white, one glasses lens spider-webbed with cracks, and his upper lip and chin was streaked from blood from his nose. In the seventh grade, the day before Christmas break, he'd gotten a spectacular nosebleed courtesy of one of Bowers's goons, and Eddie had found him clutching bloody toilet paper to his nose in the bathroom, insisting it wasn't broken in a stuffed up voice. Eddie had cleaned him up as best he could, brushing his hand unconsciously against Richie's knee the whole time. When Eddie had seen that crumpled Missing poster, he'd thought of that day, even though he couldn't explain why. 

Richie looked worse than that now, and Eddie felt the sudden, unexplainable urge to touch his face. "Rich," he said in a small voice, uncertain of what else to say. 

"Eds," Richie gasped out, his voice raspy. His hands were freezing. Eddie's toes slipped helplessly against the rocks as he tried to get up, but he couldn't move. They were face to face, close enough to touch. 

"Rich…" he tried again. His fingers spasmed achingly against the edge. 

"Eds," Richie repeated, and he sounded on the verge of tears. "Eds, I… I need help."

"I'm coming, okay?" Eddie blurted, and he felt a little like he might cry, too. "I'm coming, Rich, I swear, I'm gonna help, just…" His feet slipped again, scraping helplessly; his fingers spasmed around the edge of the rock. 

"Eds," Richie whispered, and his eyes were wide behind his glasses. His voice had sounded a little bit like that in Neibolt, the first time, when he'd said Eddie's name. 

"Eddie…" Richie tried, but his voice was muffled, and when he opened his mouth again, deep red blood spilled over his lips.

"_No,_" Eddie blurted without thinking, and reached as if to wipe the blood away. But he heard the clown, the fucking _ clown's _ voice again, mocking him fiercely, saying, _ It's too laaaate. It's too late, Eddie. _

Richie was too pale now, his face smeared with blood, his fingers going limp around Eddie's wrist. Eddie reached for him again, but the clown had appeared behind Richie before he could touch him. It offered Eddie a sharp-toothed smile and whispered confidentially, "You can't save him, Eddie."

Richie's head fell forward, his forehead hitting the ground. 

And then Eddie was slipping abruptly out of Richie's grasp and plunging down, down, down all over again, trying desperately to scream and failing.

\---

He heard voices as he fell, familiar voices echoing in his ears: his mother shouting at him not to leave her, telling him he couldn't go, he couldn't leave her alone; Myra yelling similar things, telling him he couldn't leave out of nowhere, calling him selfish. His friends screaming in the sewer, twenty-seven years ago. Stan's voice shouting, _ You took me into Neibolt! You're not my friends! _ The splash of Bev being yanked underwater. Bill shouting at him to get the knife, accusing him of wanting Richie to die. Richie shouting his name in a panic. Richie whispering, _ Eds _, asking for his help. He felt like he would fall forever. 

He felt blinded when he finally hit the ground, like when the lights come up straight in your eyes. He tasted copper on his upper lip. He half-landed on something soft and immediately flinched when he realized it was a person, rolled away fast. He blinked the dots away, crawling a little, wiping the blood off of his upper lip with one hand. His nose was bleeding.

Far off, he heard Mike screaming, "Richie, Eddie!" 

Eddie blinked hard again, rubbing at his eyes, and his vision began to clear, and he saw who he was lying next to. Richie was sprawled next to him, his nose bloody, too, his eyes still glazed over. Richie was next to him, and he didn't look hurt—wasn't wounded, wasn't coughing up blood, wasn't pleading for help—but he also wasn't moving. 

Eddie's breath faltered, and he crawled toward Richie on his knees, leaned over and pressed two fingers to Richie's pulse. It throbbed weakly but reliably under his finger. Eddie breathed a sigh of relief, pressing his palm briefly flat against the side of Richie's neck. "Thank god," he whispered. "Hey, Rich, come on, wake up. We've got to get out of here."

Richie remained unresponsive, limp even when Eddie shook his shoulder. He tapped Richie's cheek a couple times, like he was trying to wake him up from a fucking hangover. (He remembered, suddenly, the first time they'd gotten drunk at age fifteen and the spectacular hangover the next morning; he'd stolen aspirin from his mom's medicine cabinet and Richie had gotten them glasses of water from the kitchen, and they'd lain in his bed for half the morning with the curtains drawn and the sheet pulled over their heads. He'd woken up with Richie's fingers tangled in his hair and had lain still for what seemed like hours to avoid waking him up.) "Come on, Richie, come on," he murmured desperately, his thumb against Richie's jaw. "Come on, wake _ up, _c'mon."

"Eddie!" Mike appeared at their sides suddenly, his hand coming down on Eddie's shoulder. "Eddie, come on, we have to move, It's not dead yet." 

"He won't wake up," Eddie said without thinking, looking up a little helplessly at Mike. It hadn't been real when he was coughing up blood, before, none of that was real, but maybe the Deadlights had gotten him, maybe he was gone, maybe he was dying. "He won't wake up, Mike."

"He'll snap out of it," Mike said in an attempt to be reassuring, but his voice was shaking. "Seriously, Eddie, we've got to go…"

Something sharp slammed into the ground, only inches away from Eddie and Richie, sending shrapnel flying. It was a fucking _ claw_, attached to the clown's fucking spider arm. Eddie yelped, hunching instinctively over Richie. Mike cursed loudly, his hand tightening on Eddie's shoulder. "Come on!" he shouted, and Eddie forced himself to stand. He took Richie with him, pulling him halfway into his arms and pulling him with him. Mike grabbed Richie's legs and helped to move him more fully. 

As soon as they were a few feet away, the claw slammed down in the exact spot where they'd just been. It would've gone right through them if they'd still been there. Eddie bit down too hard on his lip and tasted another burst of blood. 

The claw swung towards them again, and they managed to move faster, carrying Richie out of the way and into a little cavern off to the side. Mike was sweating and pale when they lowered him to the ground, looking shaken, like he'd seen something horrible, too. He put his hand back on Eddie's shoulder and asked, "You okay?"

Eddie was still aching all over, could still hear the voices, could still see Richie's face covered in blood as he pleaded for help. But he said, "I'm fine," and tried to mean it. "You?"

"Good as I can be, I guess," said Mike. "We need to find the others."

Eddie nodded, his jaw clenched. The clown's false taunts about his friends being gone were still getting to him, even though he knew that Mike was completely fine; he wanted to know that Ben and Bill and Bev were, too. He was ready to agree, wholeheartedly, but his eyes shifted to Richie where he lay prone on the ground, and he said, "I-I don't know if we should leave Richie…"

Mike nodded immediately. "You stay here, okay? I'll find them."

Eddie nodded, and crouched back down beside Richie as Mike left. He touched Richie's cheek with the back of one hand and muttered, "You gotta wake up, Rich. Come on, I came right fucking out of this. Are you really going to let me show you up?"

Richie didn't answer. Eddie reached down and wiped the blood away from under his nose. He'd done the same thing when Richie had gotten the bloody nose in middle school, and Richie had grabbed his hand when Eddie started to walk away and said in that stuffed voice, _ Thanks for cleaning me up, Spaghetti, _ and Eddie had said, _ Anytime, Tozier_, and even though his eye was half on the door, worried about someone else coming in the bathroom, he didn't let go of his hand right away. He grabbed Richie's hand now, slipping his fingers through Richie's without thinking. They were as freezing as they had been in the Deadlights. He checked Richie's pulse on his wrist just to be sure; it was still there, thank fucking god. He was alive, but he wasn't waking up, and Eddie had no idea why, didn't know why he'd come out of it easily and Richie hadn't, didn't know why he wasn't coming to… 

And he remembered in a flash: Bev in the Deadlights, not coming to, either. What Ben had done to get her out. 

He stopped thinking about that, then, and just moved. He squeezed Richie's hand and leaned forward abruptly to kiss him. 

Richie jolted awake underneath him, gasping under Eddie's mouth. Eddie pulled back as abruptly as he'd leaned in and found Richie looking up at him almost in awe, his eyes wide and disbelieving, glinting in the dim light like they were wet. "Eddie?" he whispered, and his voice was choked, was lined with disbelief. Eddie's breath faltered, his heart thudding, relieved as hell that Richie was okay and panicked and wishing for his inhaler all at once. He was still holding onto Richie's hand, and Richie was suddenly reaching up with his free one as if to touch Eddie's face. His hand was shaking, Eddie saw, and worry was starting to set in just as Richie's fingers made tentative contact with his jaw. 

A variety of emotions flashed over Richie's face then: confusion, something like elation, and then fear. His eyes grew even wider, something like tears behind his cracked lenses, and just as Eddie began to speak—said, "Richie," in a cautious tone, and wanted to ask if he was okay and apologize for kissing him and apologize for not saving him sooner all at once—Richie reached up, put his hand on Eddie's shoulder, and shoved. Shoved hard, so that Eddie went sprawling off of him and to the side, hitting the ground for what was certainly the cap on the Amount Of Reasonable Times to have hit the ground in an hour time span. 

Eddie sat up, biting back a groan, and said, "Rich, what the _ fuck,"_ like he was angry, when really his face was turning red with horrible embarrassment and he had absolutely no right to be angry. _ Fuck, I shouldn't have kissed him, _ he thought, and loathed himself for it. A million things were racing through his head and he was trying not to think about any of them, about his mom murmuring horrible things behind the newspaper and Bowers shouting worse and _ fuck_, Myra, and Richie never talking to him again, and he winced hard and dug his nails into the back of his hand to snap himself out of it.

"The clown, Eds," Richie said, and Eddie could hear him now, he was crying. _ Fuck_. He was scrambling clumsily away from the spot where they'd just been and talking frantically as he went. "It's not dead, It's still alive. It's going to—" He broke off abruptly, freezing in place, and Eddie saw him shaking in the dark. "Eds, where are we?" 

"W-we're in a side cavern thing," Eddie said. "Mike and I moved you over here." He rubbed a hand over his mouth, his eyes shutting briefly, and then moved closer to Richie. "Richie, are you…" he began, but was cut off by Richie turning and embracing him tightly. His fingers dug deeply into the back of Eddie's hoodie, his glasses pressing awkwardly against Eddie's neck, but the feeling was such a relief that Eddie relaxed in a rush. Richie was _ alive_, he'd managed to save him, but the image of Richie's pale face streaked with blood as he begged for help was still at the back of Eddie's mind, and so he leaned into the embrace, hugging Richie back just as tightly and hoping he didn't mind. "You okay?" he whispered. 

It took a moment for Richie to answer. Eddie heard him sniffle a couple times, swallow hard, and then he said, "Yeah," in a quiet, resigned voice. He let go of Eddie slowly, swiped at his eyes, and muttered, "Fucking Deadlights."

"Fucking Deadlights," Eddie agreed, and wiped his own face with his own quivering hands. He felt like he'd be seeing that shit in nightmares for the rest of his life. 

He looked back at Richie, who was still staring at him with wet eyes, with a look of awe, like he couldn't believe Eddie was there. There was a million things Eddie wanted to say to him—questions, apologies; _ God, I'm so glad you're okay_—but before he could say any of them, Richie spoke first. "Eds—" he began, faltering. 

And that was all he had time to say before the others appeared, all in varying states of disarray: Bill, soaked from head to toe; Bev, looking like she was covered in fucking _ blood_; Ben, coated in dirt; and Mike at their sides, his eyes darting back and forth as if he needed the confirmation that they were all whole. Eddie wordlessly held a hand out, and he and Richie got to their feet and joined them. 

\---

They killed the clown by slinging insults at It, like they were fucking middle schoolers. Eddie was wondering why the fuck they couldn't have done that when they were _ actually _fucking middle schoolers, but it didn't fucking matter because the clown was dead. That was all that mattered, that it was all finally over. They were free. 

They didn't have long to revel in their victory, because the fucking cavern started crumbling around them, and they had to make a run for it, scrambling up and through the tight tunnels to try and find daylight as rocks and dirt rained down around them. It felt like the end of the world, and Eddie kept having to remind himself that it wasn't, that it was just the opposite of that. Or it would be if they managed to get out. 

The others seemed as nervous as he was, ducking past the falling debris, pushing through dirt and greywater as quickly as possible. Richie was in front of Eddie and he kept looking back, the same panic from the cavern on his face, like he expected Eddie to disappear. Finally, he just reached back and grabbed Eddie's hand in his own grimy one, holding tight, and Eddie was instantly thankful; he'd sort of wanted to do that, too. He clung hard to Richie's hand as they wove their way back to the sunlight. 

The house crumbled to pieces as they burst out onto the lawn, collapsing in on itself. They turned to watch as they reached the street, clustering together as they watched it crumble. Bill was bent nearly in half, like he was in pain; Mike was sagging with relief, as if weary, a small smile on his face. Ben and Bev were leaning on each other, holding each other up. 

Richie still had ahold of Eddie's hand. Eddie was still watching the house with a morbid sort of satisfaction—_Let it crumble, _he thought, furious, he hated the place—but he looked towards Richie when he felt a tug on his arm. Richie had jerked towards the house, like he was going to run back into it, and then stopped abruptly. His hand was shaking again, his fingers quivering between Eddie's. He looked back towards Eddie with an unsteady motion and smiled, just a little, shakily. 

Eddie smiled back, because they'd gotten out and they'd gotten out unscathed and the clown was dead and he'd gotten Richie out of the Deadlights, hadn't failed his best friend again. They were both alive. He looked back at the destroyed house and didn't let go of Richie's hand.

\---

After Neibolt, the first time, they'd taken Eddie back to Bill's house in the basket of Mike's delivery bike. Eddie could remember sitting crumpled in the wire basket, clutching his broken arm to his chest and trying not to cry as Mike muttered reassurances behind him. Richie had ridden near Mike, pedaling so hard Eddie could scarcely believe it, and he kept looking back at Eddie worriedly. His face was sheet-white, and his eyes were fucking huge behind his glasses. If Eddie looked out at all the shit they were passing, the houses flashing by, he thought he might vomit, so he clutched his inhaler in one hand and just looked at Richie. 

At Bill's, they helped him out on the lawn. Bill knelt beside him and stammered out an apology before running in to call his mom. Bev and Stan went in behind him, Bev insisting she'd find a first aid kit for him and Ben (who was still bleeding, one hand clutched to his shirt), and Stan promising to bring Eddie water. Mike went to check on Ben but Richie stayed right by Eddie's side. He crouched beside Eddie in the grass and grabbed his good hand fast, like he was afraid to do it. "You're gonna be okay, Eds," he said softly. He was holding Eddie's hand gentler than Eddie would've expected—he thought maybe Richie had held his hand before, but suddenly, he couldn't remember—and he tentatively stroked his thumb over Eddie's palm before letting go, as quickly as he had taken it. 

Eddie had let his inhaler drop on the grass but he reached for it now, because he could feel his chest tightening familiarly. He was almost delirious with pain, dizzy and on the verge of tears, and scared shitless about how pissed his mommy would be; he fumbled with his inhaler for a few long moments before Richie helped him, taking the inhaler in his own hand and holding it up to Eddie's mouth. Eddie took a deep breath when he pulled the trigger and nodded thankfully, still unable to speak. Richie moved the inhaler away, tucking it back into Eddie's pocket; he was still looking at Eddie, and he looked almost on the verge of tears himself. Eddie had to close his eyes because he didn't want Richie to see him cry and he didn't want to see Richie cry. He let his head fall back against the grass and tried to think of anything but the pain. 

"Y-your mom will be here soon," said Richie, his voice wobbling. "She'll take care of you, right?"

Eddie couldn't answer that. He was thinking of the Missing poster, suddenly, and then he was remembering the clown's horrible gloves clutching his face, those fucking _ teeth _, and he almost died, and his friends could die, too. He yanked the inhaler back out and took another puff on it, breathing shakily. "Richie?" he said quietly, without opening his eyes. "P-promise me you won't go missing?"

Richie didn't say anything right away, and Eddie didn't open his eyes. He was afraid to open his eyes. He lay back on the grass, arm cradled to his chest until Richie finally spoke. "I promise, Eds," he whispered. "I-I'm gonna be around to annoy you for the rest of forever, 'kay?"

"'Kay," he muttered, opening his eyes squintingly. Richie was still sitting next to him, still looking down at him. His hand was back on Eddie's knee, the way it had been in the house. Something warm stirred deep in Eddie's stomach, and he was ready to blurt something else out, but then the others were coming back over, and Richie was taking his hand away, and they were helping him sit up and passing him a glass of water and everything started moving too fast. The next thing he knew, he was looking at his friends through the window of his mother's car, through the tears streaming out of his eyes, and she was shouting, and she was driving away, and he wouldn't see any of them for months. 

That was an odd memory to have right then, walking away from the rubble of Neibolt (the third time). Eddie wasn't in nearly as much pain as the first time; he was covered in scrapes and bruises, he had a residual headache from the fucking Deadlights, and his cheek still stung over its makeshift bandage, but it was nothing compared to the feeling of that snapped bone. But it wasn't the pain he kept returning to, not really. It was him and Richie, sprawled out on Bill's front lawn, just looking at each other, caught in that strange little moment when it felt like no one else was there, even though Ben and Mike were not far away. The look on Richie's face had been almost the same as it had been in the cavern. 

They were still holding hands, even now. They held hands all the way to the quarry, and no one really even looked twice at them. Ben and Bev were practically holding hands themselves. They only let go on the edge of the cliff. Eddie hung back a little as the others jumped; he wasn't incredibly keen on jumping in, because it honestly seemed nonsensical considering how nasty they were already, but the last thing he wanted to do was hang back by himself. He figured that it would make them look slightly less insane if they were able to get some of this shit off before heading back to the townhouse; he could take a real shower back there. He hung back as the others jumped, edging his way nervously towards the edge. He would've taken the stuff out of his pockets, but he'd done that before he even got to Neibolt, figuring his cell and wallet would be more than ruined in the sewers if he even got out. He reached down to his left hand and almost unconsciously eased his wedding ring off of his finger, tucking it in his pocket. He could've said he did it because he was afraid of losing it, but he didn't think that would be the truth.

He thought the jump would be terrifying—memories of the Deadlights still behind his eyes, the feeling of falling like he would never land—but it wasn't. It felt silly, but for a moment, he almost felt like he was flying. 

\---

Eddie moved to the shore when he was tired of swimming. He sat on a rock, exhausted and wringing out his wet jacket, watching his friends splash around. It wasn't entirely bad, sitting there—he still felt gross, but at least he couldn't feel mud and sewage hardening in his hair anymore. And the sun was warm, warm enough to leave him yawning and rubbing his eyes. He leaned back a little bit, his eyes slipping shut, and he stayed that way until he heard the crunch of footsteps on the sand. He opened his eyes in time to see Richie sitting down beside him with a sigh. "Hey, Eddie Spaghetti," he said, almost fondly. 

"Don't call me that," said Eddie automatically, but there was no bite in it. He was thinking about the cavern again, the way that Richie's face had crumpled before he shoved him off, and he rubbed a hand briskly over his face before saying, "Rich, I'm sorry I… kissed you like that. I just… I remembered how Bev got out of the Deadlights before, and I-I was worried…"

"No, Eds, no, you don't… you don't need to apologize," Richie said immediately, waving a hand frantically as if to erase his words. He let out a little self-deprecating laugh and shoved his glasses up to rub at his eyes. "I… I'm sorry for shoving you like that. I thought I was… I was trying to get you out of the way. I didn't mean to… hurt you or anything."

"You didn't, really," Eddie said. "No more than falling out of the Deadlights did. Hitting the ground like that, what the _ fuck_."

Richie laughed a little at that, rubbing at the back of his neck, but he was looking at Eddie in surprise all over again. "You got caught in the Deadlights?"

"Yeah, I think I did," he said. "The fucking clown came out of nowhere when I was trying to get you down. Mike got us out somehow. I came out of it right away, but you…" He broke off mid-sentence then, looking at the ground, his fingers laced together. 

"They fucking suck, right?" Richie muttered, shoving his glasses up on his forehead to rub at his eyes again. "Wanna start a support group? We could probably get Bev on board. Maybe avoid the nightmares of our horrible deaths that last twenty-seven years this time, whaddya say?"

Eddie swallowed hard, and tried to push back the memory of Richie's face covered in blood as he pled for help, Richie's hand slipping out of his. It hadn't been real, but it had _ felt _real, and then there had been the moments where Richie hadn't come out of the trance yet and Eddie had been terrified that he would never wake up. And then he remembered everything Richie had said since they'd come out of the Deadlights, the way he kept looking at him. And he blurted then, "Richie, what did you see in the Deadlights?"

Richie instantly stiffened from head to toe, his shoulders tightening, and he said, "Eds, I don't want to—" in a strangled voice. 

"I-I saw you," Eddie said in a rush, not because he wanted to, but because he had to; Richie wasn't going to volunteer his story if Eddie didn't do the same. "You were hurt, and I… I couldn't help you. Again." He bit his lower lip hard and ducked his head, his eyes slipping shut. 

"You died," Richie whispered, his voice small. 

Eddie's eyes flew open at that, and he turned to look at Richie with astonishment. Richie was hunched over, his elbows on his knees, his fingers laced together; his face was stony still, like he was trying to compose himself. "Y-y-you died," he murmured. "After you got me out of the Deadlights. That's why I shoved you away like that, I was trying to…" He winced, shaking his head hard. 

Eddie could barely speak, words caught in his throat. He wished briefly for his inhaler again. "Rich," he muttered, and his hand was suddenly on Richie's arm. 

"It was the worst thing I've ever experienced," Richie choked out, not looking at Eddie. 

Eddie sucked in a sharp, surprised breath, looking at Richie with astonishment, his fingers digging suddenly into the fabric of Richie's shirt. "Rich," he said again, a little helplessly, because even after everything else that had happened that day, it seemed unbelievable: that Richie would described his death as the worst thing he'd ever experienced. "Rich, why would it—"

Richie laughed a little, shaking his head. "That's a surprise to you? Really? You're… you're my best friend, Eds." 

"Don't call me that," Eddie said again, but he didn't really mean it. He felt like he could cry all over again. He leaned forward instead, his head resting against Richie's shoulder, and said only so he wouldn't cry, "So, you're saying you haven't made _ any _ new friends in the past two decades?"

Richie snorted, choking back laughter. "Wow. Fuck you, too, dipshit."

Eddie laughed a little, too, and leaned further into Richie. "You're my best friend, too, Richie," he said quietly, and felt Richie lean back into him, their heads bumping gently together. "And I'm… I'm really glad you're okay."

Richie sniffled a little, and said, "R-right back atcha, Eds." 

They huddled together on the sun-warmed rock, watching their friends splash around out in the water. Eddie reached out, finding Richie's hand by his knee, and took it in his, holding on tightly. 


End file.
